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New blog post! I give some of my thoughts on Obsidian being proprietary, and why I think it still does a good job of respecting me as a user. I generally prefer open-source, but Obsidian is a rare exception to me, and feels polished compared to some open-source note-taking apps I've tried.

duskfall.devTechnically proprietary, but open in spiritObsidian feels so much more open than most proprietary software

Duskfall

@duskfall.dev

Need to write this as an addendum at some point but for now I'll put it here. I talked a bit about how the format is open and easily portable to other apps, but some have criticized this point with Obsidian before.

15/10/26, 5:03 pm0 reposts1 like

Duskfall

@duskfall.dev

I do note that plugin-specific syntax can be an issue if you want to port your data over, but even certain Markdown syntax may not work everywhere since there isn't really one standard. That said, Markdown is still widely understood and it'll probably just be display errors for unrecognized formats.

Duskfall

@duskfall.dev

My bigger issue with this criticism is that it's not really an Obsidian-specific thing. The more you specialize and make use of one app's idiosyncrasies and features, the less portable that data becomes. It's a good thing to keep in mind as a user, and probably a caveat I'll need to note in my post.

Duskfall

@duskfall.dev

So be conscious of how deeper use of something will impact portability. Most of my files could be easily exported, but my dictionary files rely a lot more on weird custom formatting and styles. If you value portability above all, maybe you should just use straight .txt files.